THE PERSUADERS

The feared loan recovery agent is back‚ sending borrowers scurrying for cover. A BT investigation gives a ringside view of the dark underbelly of the  consumer loan recovery business and the regulatcory gaps that they exploit

- ANAND ADHIKARI

“AAP SIRF BANK ke sales target mein dhyaan dijiye (You just focus on the bank’s sales target). Don’t worry about the rest. Your defaulted money, which has been stuck for six months, will be released within six days.” That’s the reassurance from Mumbai-based Good Luck Recovery Agency to banks saddled with bad loans. Inside its ramshackle office, housed in Firdaus Apartment in the Bhendi Bazaar area of south Mumbai, half a dozen agents dressed casually are negotiating, pressurising and threatening defaulting customers. At one table, a nervous couple is seen engrossed in a conversation. At another, a bearded man in his early 40s almost holds a defaulter by the neck, threatening to choke him to death. “My money should come within two days,” screams another 30-something in a red T-shirt with the looks of a bouncer. “Don’t show me the papers!” yells another agent to a middle-aged borrower who is pleading with folded hands. There is madness at the Good Luck office, which specialises in the recovery of personal loans and credit cards.